Articles on Primal Therapy, psychogenesis, causes of psychological traumas, brain development, psychotherapies, neuropsychology, neuropsychotherapy. Discussions about causes of anxiety, depression, psychosis, consequences of the birth trauma and life before birth.

Sunday, February 7, 2016

Still More on the Act-out

If I told you that the way you breathe is an act-out, you might scoff, so let me explain. Act-outs mean that you are acting out unconsciously and symbolically a trauma from the past. Allow me to offer one example: shallow breathing. When there was not enough oxygen at birth, the mother being heavily drugged and/or anesthetized, the drug seeps into the baby to shut down her breathing, she learned to conserve oxygen to survive by shallow breathing, she becomes a shallow breather; those who do so, just think that’s the way it is for them, and not a sign of anything else.

The fact is that it is a sign of an event that endures and directs the system in so many ways. And this extends throughout the system; so when oxygen is depleted during birth the blood vessels constrict or shut down to save one’s life. The result can be chronic migraines where the blood constricts to save oxygen supplies. This happens when someone is upset over something, feels threatened or is anxious.

From then on, we hoard oxygen as a life-saving device. The whole system is in locked-down mode. And this modus operandi spreads throughout the system: the way one speaks, bespeaks of energy conservation; softly, quietly, of being constantly in a state of holding back, which sometimes translates into conserving money, emotions, breathing. expression, etc. In short, by not expending too much of anything. One can become a general hoarder; ”I cannot be without....otherwise, I will die” (Originally….without enough oxygen my life is in danger). Her life-time leitmotif is, “It is never enough..” and “I have to make sure I have enough”. The fear is I cannot run out (of oxygen, of what I need) or I will die. If I conserve, I will not be danger; I will have enough. If I have enough it means I am being taken care of and I won’t die. This seems like a stretch yet so many patients report on this theme constantly.

In another case a patient harkens back to originally saving just enough energy to handle minimal tasks. She avoids being overwhelmed (again, as originally). She only buys what is basic and necessary. She only travels lightly so as not to be overloaded. A too heavy suitcase is a cause of anxiety because she fears she may lack the energy to handle the load. Her whole life runs on the formula, “If I spend too much, I will die.” And this is symbolic acting out of her original trauma. Too much breathing can lead to death, so heavy exercise is avoided. She prefers a simple life style, with little material worries so she is not overwhelmed. The less she has, the less she has to take care of, the less energy she has to expend. This person wants others to take control so that she does not have to organize anything.

What we have here are different modes of behavior from roughly the same kind of imprint…. depleted oxygen during gestation and at birth. Life circumstance adds to choices but the overall behavior has a single motif.

An extreme form of this is free diving; the idea is to go as deep in the ocean while holding one's breath, until one becomes a champion breath holder. And believe it or not, there are medals for this. Except it is dangerous and someone just drowned last week trying it. It is done without any oxygen at all, and experts can go minutes without breathing. The unconscious idea again is to re-enact the early trauma, coming close to death and trying to survive. It seems that the closer one comes to the limit and near death, the more one is applauded. It is the early trauma turned upside down. I wonder who instigated this madness? But one is attracted to it because it is a chance at reliving symbolically. Coming close to death and living. That is the paradigm, the leitmotif called "sport". So here we have different modes from roughly the same imprint. One embraces it and the other flees from; not even getting into an elevator for fear of reawakening the original imprint. It includes many factors; one is to dash ahead crashing into their imprint and conquering it, the other is avoiding it at all cost. In any case, it pervades every aspect of one's being. The counter-phobes find it and chase it, while the phobics look elsewhere. So free divers are counter-phobic? I would bet on it, but then again I don't bet.

"The result can be chronic migraines where the blood constricts to save oxygen supplies. This happens When someone is upset over something, feels threatened or is anxious."

So ... what you say could apply to the same reason as being shy and scared to represent himself (not to say that that is the reason for it?).

I have a memory that is close to me! I also think when my dad came in and threatened to beat me as I in panic called out for mom... terrified of the dark in the room... and I crawled under the covers and stayed there until all the air was out... and still my dad was there and threatened me when I looked out and gasped for air... in panic I crawled under the covers again... a terrible experience far from what words can tell. As I write this... so I feel it is in the parameters to any fetal stage for what asphyxia is of death. I was five years old at the time. I dont know its ending yet.

So I am... for what I am for what it could be a memory for what all that my complex turns out to be... and how my now opportunities for intelligent responses is limited reactions. Reactions... because that is how intelligence turns out... intelligence manifested in reactions for what content we have with us... as presented. How shall I become intelligent without having experienced the reaction around my dad:s threat as it affected everything for what I am?

An email comment: When I explain your theory in terms of learned helplessness/hopelessness in connection to needs and feelings coming from trauma and deprivation and the empty search for symbols that allows us not to feel such... They say "That makes sense! Who are these guys Arthur and France Janov? I'm going to look that up." Far more often than I think you might believe, this is the result.

You're contributing to a big possibility that humanity can be saved: from itself...

Another email comment (Part 1):"The way we breathe depends on physical and mental memories.

My breathing, I have often touched on in my blogs over the years. It was dramatically disturbed / affected in the neurotic / conscious, protracted birth trauma caused by my mother. I was locked in the birth canal for 48 hours. Therefore, many of my act outs and subsequent therapeutic treatment experiences have come to focus on my breathing.

For several years, existed a repeated pattern, during my birth primals, that I fell into a deep anesthesia. This was aggravated gradually that I hyperventilated fiercely and suddenly not breathing at all. This condition lasted a good while and I struggled desperately to get air but without success. Suddenly, I gave up and felt myself drowning / dying. Consciousness returned weakly and slowly. I had been through a primal instead of an epileptic seizure. The feeling of anesthetic pressure released slowly. I experienced a total relief and liberation, first physically and shortly afterwards emotionally. My breathing was relaxed and parasympathetic.

During more than 20 years, I made early each morning push-ups (2 x 125) at my fingertips with my feet on a table (my way of freediving). During each of the two pushup series I held my breath. Besides Carbamazepine (Tegrotol), these act outs were my way of keeping up my ego and reduce my anxiety of my problems and then especially the epileptic threat. I used my abdominal muscles in combination with my pushups to displace anxiety and tension associated with a stressful and demanding work career. This defense tied to my breathing, which I have developed over many years with great willpower and discipline, was certainly the heaviest reason that my two years at the Primal Institute in LA did not lead to faster visible results.

Part 2:"This, I felt instinctively and contacted the Rolfing Institute at my regular visits in Boulder, Col. In my files I still have the following statements by Ida Rolf:

“Physical individuality is shaped by the forces of life - how we were born, when we learned to move, our goals, experiences, accidents, mental and emotional sets. All of these leave a record in our mental and our physical memories. The two are in many ways similar - bodies as well as minds bear witness to the puzzelments, accidents, unfinished business of our lives.”

“The more you watch people change in front of your eyes, the more sure you are about how people can get stuck in childish incidents, or birth incidents, or for all I know prebirth incidents. You see it right in front of your eyes. And then change happen through Rolfing, and it begins to be possible for a body to take on what we consider appropriate adult form. Then the person continues on psychologically, and develops.”

During 5 weeks, I received a treatment at the Rolfing Institute. I got a deep tissue massage to restore the bodys natural posture and structural integration, which certainly, in time, would have a different, very profound, pleasant and fascinating effect on me physically and mentally. The treatment took place just weeks before moving back to Sweden from LA. Immediately when I came to Sweden effects of Rolfing started to show. January 1980, I experienced for the first time how a potential Gand Mal seizures developed into a birth primal. Thanks to my time in the Primal Institute, having understood the Primal Principle / Evolution in Reverse I could grasp and hadle what was happening to me. Not to forget the Primal Retreats in the 80ies.

The rest is happy history. With the single exception that Dr. Janov, who is well acquainted with the potential of Rolfing, is not for it. He wrote in an email to me on the 10/12 of 2010, when I told him that I started a second series of Rolfing treatments: "Rolfing May help but I am not for it because it pushes the muscles to release tension without proper connection to the brain. The brain should first give instructions and then the muscles release as a result of a memory or imprint. It is mindless and I am not for that”.

Dr. Ida Rolf apparently saw it the other way around.

Personally I speak for both in combination. I am an excellent example myself and I have friends who have shared my experience.

Saxophone and breathing.

My new "act out", to learn to play the saxophone, reminds me of the many emotions that affected my life, consciously or unconsciously. Breathing is a critical factor in the Woodwind Instruments. Being able to keep the tone even and beautiful over several beats would not work with shallow breathing.Thanks to The Primal Principle / Evolution in Reverse and Ida Rolf's deep tissue massage / Structural Integration I hope one day being able to handle the saxophone for my own satisfaction. Probably at the price of a number of new repressed feelings popping up!

Rolfing: you are knocking on the backdoor to get in! Is it possible?Rolfing are meant to get the body to relax from the stress bound tension!

It also says that it changes the psychological state that is bound to emotional memories registered in the limbic system and brain stem... and would by a physical masage as Rolfing achieves release these tensions emotionally tied for its cause.

It feels like you are knocking on the back door by Rolfing in an attempt to enter through the main entrance which prevents itself apart from what the psychological relief of physical tension could accomplish! If possible?

If I physically feel better by Rolfing... it easier the process of mentally bound feelings... of reason that I have physical tension? Sure... why not! It is not believed to be dangerous to get masage because of physical pain in your body... more than what Rolfing therapist does not understand the bound feeling as they alleges coming up???

Jan... why don't you go to Janov:s center and is involved in a study for your claims?

I find my stretches in the mornings... similar to what wild animals do... so as cats perform be pleasant... it may is what Rolfing achieves besides my stretches is in its own process. Try it and stay by it and you will see.

It's impossible for me not to 'resonate' with this and feed back. I have also been involved in various forms of bodywork and body therapy. I cannot go into detail but I know I need to do a load more, Yoga might be the one. Secondly I need to give up carpentry for a good while as it had become part of my act out, but I'm not selling my tools!

I cannot begin to explain 'why' bodywork helps me, that would be the subject of an entire book, though a fair few pages of it are already written & posted here by Art onto this blog. I see Art has made a very clear explanation in principle of why a 'bodywork' could generate false feelings / memory / sensation but is that inevitable?

if I may I'd like to say something else about the act out that I've learned. There are some people, perhaps the 'intellectuals' who's act out is masked by their complete conformity to social convention. Even unconventional people who pride themselves of being 'different' may be masking their act out through interpreting it through social norms. What I am really getting at here is that few if any escape 'expressing' their imprints by merely conforming. What is conformity? Usually we think of it as attending school / church / work and repeating the rules like a mantra. But actually it can be something as simple as Arts 'getting out for coffee'. . . With me, now I realise, it is my constant struggle with trying to make things right after they've gone wrong. My life is one whole act out of 'trouble shooting'. On the face of it, the attempts various agencies make to do the same (to put wrongs right)is laudable and even sincere in intention, but the reality is that beneath the surface of so many 'good intentions' lies the imprint with all it's subtle manifestations and these project out into social life without end, relentlessly shaping everything. Few escape the clutches of their imprints and fewer still have NO imprints. . . The appearance of normality is maintained by very many through an apparent conformity. But like the baby who was born into a blue room filled with blue people and who grew up in a blue world when finally he saw the colour red he simply didn't see it. I have heard that when Captain Cook appeared on the horizon in his tall ship the Polynesian people simply could not SEE the ship. It was SO strange it did not appear to them at all. So the story goes, their medicine man noticed a strange 'cloud' on the horizon and eventually had to get help from another islander to distinguish it at all; many islanders simply could not 'SEE' the ship at all; it did not enter their consciousness because they were totally blind to such a strange 'form'.

Sadly I think this is very true of feelings and the pressure on the few who may have a tiny thread of access is so great from the many who have no thread of access at all is such as to render most people utterly unaware of the truth of existence. . . Which of course is that life could be infinitely more rewarding if only we would open up to our feelings. . .

Coincidentally, there is also a certain Nobel committee in Sweden that awards with noble metal medallion carefully selected achievements in a field of objective truth so we can better control what we can measure. maybe it is just impossible to get such a medal for primal.it could be more appropriate for discovery of frontal lobotomy technique*, it seems.

in the last few years the understanding of the thing i am experiencing is slowly developing. no breath, no movement, no orientation, no vision or sound, no tactile sensation and… no confusion and anxiety (except if outside brain is engaged too). but yes, very intense and yes very interesting thing that seems to be trying for decades to come to surface. from what i learned from primal theory i conclude that the thing comes from the womb. where else from? why mostly in specific curled body position? i think it is because it is vulnerability position that allows for complete muscle relaxation of deep so called “core” and diaphragm muscles at the end of exhale. it helps replicate original body state? the thing sometimes shortly migrated into (lucid) dream - 2nd line intrusion.

is it enough for a medal? or am i wrong?

Sometimes the objective science to me look indistinguishable from gossip. needs careful interpretation.http://www.thefinaledition.com/article/nobel-committee-asks-obama-nicely-to-return-peace-prize.htmlBTW, the Swedish is 13th Secretary General of Council of Europe. we are all the same in our different acting-outs. maybe some just feel more accomplished…

-"Sometimes the objective science to me look indistinguishable from gossip"-.

Well said, true satire. When you say it like that it takes the arrogance out of those 'scientists' assumptions and makes them less frightening to us mere mortals. Surely that is the best intention of humour, even when it's no laughing matter.

I studied a broad range of dance and movement for many years, including teaching. I taught classical ballet,Pilates, bits of Alexander Technique and principles of movement based on Body Mind Centreing. Years ago I started an unfinished Graduate Dip in Movement and Dance.

Looking back I could have fulfilled my dream of being a Dancer, however I didn't get to the feelings in time, that would have enabled me to do that. If only I could have had Primal Therapy back then to get rid of all that tension. I recall a dance class I went to straight after a Primal Session , where the teacher didn't recognise me because my movement was suddenly and unexplainably, free of tension and full of presence! Also I wasn't dancing to get her love anymore, but for the joy of feeling.

Primal is the most truthful and healing form of dance and movement therapy .

A lot of dance and movement classes are teachers acting out their need on their students. How can they not? Especially sad when it happens to children.

There is a large branch of dance and 'therapeutic' movement associated with Brazilian music. I did once get into Capoera for a bit, too much for me though. It's amazing; it developed out of the slaves enshacklement with rigid irons to hold their legs and arms apart when they were being 'driven'; so the story goes, the slave 'drivers' got into the habit of beating them as they were 'driven' along. . . So the slaves developed & learned Capoera to defend themselves. Any one who has ever been physically bullied or restrained could do well to check this out; it is a 'link' to seriously important sensations & feelings; and to the will to survive difficult odds, imho.

A psychiatrist can only hear what restricts him to be a psychiatrist! Otherwise... he experience him self not being good enough. Would he be able to perceive that it can be likened to taking a mallet from the mouth of a child... it to compare his reactions to the proposition of what psychiatry is not good enough... without science for their business?

I do not think so many of them are capable of a dialogue... a conversation on what content is presented without underlying reactions puts a spoke in the wheel... if it does not fit to hold the sticks away from our own wheels! A phenomenon that would need to see the light of day... but without the knowledge of how to disclose the contradictions of the sort it is impossible... contradictions behind the scenes of ourselves.

A brain leaking catastrophic consciousness without perceiving the content... with consequences of anxiety and depression which we have to put up with until the day content is presented in ourselves... being a psychiatrist can be in parity with what anxiety defend against! What an diabolical process we suffer for what others prevents us to experience the cause!

Psychiatry = an obstacle for what we have the right to learn about ourselves! The madness is on the inside of our psychiatric institutions... psychiatrists who decides that we should never get out of what we ourselves are suffering terribly... a cuckoo's nest to behave like humans.

About the psychiatric majority... eat shit eighty billion flies does it and they can't be wrong! Sorry.

I am certainly a shallow breather - always have been - and I feel a need to conserve emotion, I would say.

All I know is my mother had "gas and air" (NOX with air) when she was giving birth to me. I doubt that would have led to any extreme trauma for me as a foetus trying to get out but would be interested to learn anything to the contrary.

That said, I think breathing is central to how we experience life and will undoubtedly reflect our earliest experiences.

Dan, you can Google: "nitrous oxide as labor analgesia" for info. Seems it is used more in European countries than the U.S.

Also it probably would be good to note if the mom smoked or was very stressed during the gestation as an influence for how the baby would conserve energy, (according to what we read here on the posts.)

since getting onto this blog 5 years ago I have been too scared to delve into my birth records. As a lay scientist applying Q/C, I don't want to 'know' intellectually first what may be better to feel first without the interference of a 'formal idea' (beyond my 'hunch'). So, I have noticed for many years that I alternate between very shallow breathing when stressed and very deep breathing when relaxed (not unusual)but this has increased since my breakdown. I have deduced from various experiences and some things my Mum told me that I probably got off to a good start at birth but subsequently was knocked right out in the birth canal by a dose of something very powerful Mum had for the pain. I reckon I was born so drugged I 'stopped breathing' (anoxia) and had to be pulled / pushed out as a piece of live but inanimate meat.

I have very little choice about my recent and dramatic change in symptoms, which seem to have (reverse) evolved from a lot of crying (3rd/2nd line)5 to 1 years ago to some startling 1st line sensations. For starters and to be clear, there are NO drugs I have tried yet that help (suppress ! ? ) these symptoms, nor are there any therapists or 'buddies', nor any hope of getting to the Primal Center. . . YET (is this part of my act out)? So far, the prescribed drugs simply made me feel death sensations / suicidal and took away all my motivation (surprise surprise, so taking them is an act out)? The available therapists and 'buddies' here in UK are all brainwashed cognitivists of one sort or another (ha ha, not funny!) So, whether Art posts this 'record' of my experiences or not I am stuck with these symptoms, changing over time. . .

So after the characteristic 3rd / 2nd line stuff when my daughter goes home and / or when awakening in morning (now very reduced in time span and intensity, I wonder why), there I am collapsing onto the bed with firstly (about 1yr ago) V deep breathing and subsequent repetitions have elucidated these increasing 'drugged' state feelings and sensations leading to 'shallow breathing' vis a vis deeper breathing. . . most recently accompanied by one particular (day)dream of a little terrier dog tightly holding my hand with his paws to his chest. . . Now, I know I'm not supposed to be doing this alone but who the fuck else is there to help? So, I realised / realise (insight) my neocortex has translated a birth resuscitation experience coming around after being pulled out drugged and with v shallow breathing.

I don't need a thermometer or a blood pressure machine to tell me these experiences are accompanied by a very noticeable temperature/pressure drop. Also I don't need a therapist to help me realise the prescribed drugs INCREASED the symbolic IDEATION in my dreams.

I don't need any therapist to tell me I need a primal therapist either (ha ha ha ha - not funny). But the peculiar thing is, that as time goes by, my symptoms follow a pattern only Primal Theory predicts. Now I'd really like to know who the little terrier was (in my day dream) who held my hand so close and so tightly to his heart? Secondly, at my first intake interview the therapist asked me if I ever had an interest in amphetamines. . . I was cagey about answering that one, yes. basically for a very short while back in the day when I was a biker. . . Anyway, I wonder if whilst I was lying there, shallow breathing, blue probably, a lump of live new born and rather cold meat, on the 'slab' with some significant person holding my little hand tightly. . . I wonder if they had given me a dose of amphetamine to WAKE me up? I surely do like a cup of tea in the morning. . . Regarding my act out? After a cup of tea these symptoms are temporarily alleviated and IF I get a move on and GET OUT TO WORK, well then, I'm on my way to some significant destination, perhaps back into the arms of mater. But as we all know, sooner or later some thing or some person cottons on to your act out and throws a spanner into it and before you know it your act out doesn't do the trick any more. . . No. So my bosses wife is onto me (her jealousy of course) and who wants to run into the arms of a jealous women when you're subconsciously looking for the arms of mater?

I just saw a father who forced down his baby in the stroller! A terrible experience. The child tried desperately to convey that something was not as it should be... still... the father forced down his baby. The childs alreadyloggedin cautious whimper like an understanding of what madness it was facing... I could hear it in surrendering its needs! What a terrible event!

We talk so much about love because we do not recognize the phenomenon... something we are alienated why it is a phenomenon. That we talk so much about love... it is because the lack of it... but without perceiving the pain as it once was in our attempt to be loved... but was rejected. It is what it is all about! The need for love is painful... because our memories are related to being rejected without understanding that that is the case... and we suffered painfully in the attempt to be loved.

Relate pain for need of love can not be done so easily on the basis of already constructed sentences of what love is in its diseased state!

That's where the phenomenon of love has its source and we have no consciousness of it. Our awareness has found ways in order not to suffer this life-threatening condition... that's why we still suffer in our needs... we are shy and afraid of it just like then... then we in our naivety could not recognize the madness that arose for our still try... and we've become sick of what we want satisfaction today!

And now we have all these psychiatrists in need of love... that is repressed in theirs bodies and they can not perceive their own needs with koneskvenser that they subject others to suffering! What a misery we have in front of us!

What can you say about the bad suggestions when bad proposals coming out of hopeless circumstances... it is a squirrel wheel we're dealing with... it just goes around and around. Who could you claim to be responsible for something when something is done by a psychiatrist... teacher or a mother as is of a need that eases their suffering... as "medicine" to pursue chores to relieves own suffering? A psychiatrist thinks not only of himself... he is what he himself believes him to be... for what he is to ease own suffering! A self is much closer than what believes of one self is... but also closer to madness without help! By this we must do all responsible in the sense of opening the question!

Who are you in a suffering condition whose symptoms taken over all escape routes and thoughts about taking their lives is what is on offer... that is where a confused mind could have his offer... to seeking sentences for what ever it may be... to escape himself... to might be killing you. That is happening all of the time all over the world... and not least in our minds! Of course... we can ignore it... but for what purpose? This i way we all must responsible in the sense of opening the question!

What I meant was based on what many have told me, which is that some 'feedback' (!) is better than none at all. . . My experience too, total indifference can and does kill. several seriously neglected people I knew are dead now because of it.

Yes it is of survival... (I do not know if it's so much by instinct but survival is obvious) but we can not stop at to think that the survival instinct is ok for what professional lives survival instinct in the sense of being professional... as exposes people to life-threatening consequences... that is not ok... it is a total disaster why professional who do not know about their shortcomings must be informed through science and if that is not enough ... so must the moral schemes for what it exposes people be a question of priority.

People unsuspecting without being protected from quackery is a worldwide problem without even being on the agenda for what is happening. Big words... but I will say... words of content that we know much better of today... science is a fantastic tool!

It is "impossible to neglect" people the help they so desperately need... for what psychiatrists cause others suffer!

All of your friends could have been alive to day if it was not for what incapable psychiatrists causes! What they neglected their patients is primal therapy!

see if you can find the BBC Radio 4 program I posted. It's on BBC i player and see if you can find a Swede willing to translate it with verbal subtitles and ask the BBC if they'll promote it in Sweden, whu shouldn't they? Wodger think?

ArtI've regret that I haven't got your books earlier. Now I am stuck, and still act out. I have very weak health: 20 degree scoliosis, discopathy, ear tinnitus, I am dead on my right ear. I have 35 years and I am almost bald. I have psoriasis, dandruff. Now I see that it is impossible to be so F**king damaged without reason. I had 3 hernia surgeries (first one when I was 8 months old) and one major surgery for my chest. I am so devastated. Yesterday I had dream that I am in Santa Monica and I am spilling my tears to you. Yes, probabbly you are representing my father which I've never had mentally. All my life is crying for love. Lack love = death.

>> She only buys what is basic and necessary. She only travels lightly so as not to be overloaded. A too heavy suitcase is a cause of anxiety because she fears she may lack the energy to handle the load.

Art,

Right now I live with almost no material possessions to speak of, save for clothes and bedsheets, tv, etc. I enjoyed the idea of living out of society for many years, and played this out in isolation during my drug addiction. I still find it hard to relate to a desire for material, however. For me money was for drugs, smokes and maybe some food! I used to love throwing stuff away. So funny, this sounds exactly like me, always trying to pack light and take only what's needed. The noble minimalist.

Art: I live besieged by early trauma and can self-diagnose as definitely having had this sort of oxygen deprivation from hundreds of act-outs, which include lifelong asthma (which disappeared after going raw vegan 14 years ago), constant shallow breathing (I virtually hold my breath in situations triggering anxiety), and almost stopping breathing when around anyone who is concentrating on something (so as not to "disturb" them). Everything about my life is minimal: I rarely buy anything, and when I do am obsessive about getting the lowest price, raid bins and abandoned trees for food, campaign against all forms of waste, obsessively recycle and reuse, and hoard money and materials for "a rainy day" ie when my oxygen got cut off around birth and/or in the womb. I hate people who waste and who spend loads of money, when there is so much need in the world and when animals are suffering and dying and people living in grinding poverty and slavery because of it. I hate recklessness - not giving a toss about others and the consequences of onés actions (the same thing?). What you describe is a very good and clear example of the ways a specific type of primal trauma wreaks havoc in ones life, and to understand an overarching theory such as primal theory one needs to grasp the specifics.

Of course act outs become much more complex and convoluted as they are compounded by later traumata. My own "awareness" is of course unreliable as it is unconnected to origins via reliving. All it does is make me more & more desperate to primal and to feel more and more alienated and angry with the mass of complicated act outs in everyone surrounding me. Virtually all human communication and activity is unconscious and self deceptive. It´s so sad, but then even sadness is my OWN issue. A conventional therapist would praise me for this insight. Regular folk might see me as "deep", "wise", or just warn me to "lighten up!" Everyones reaction will be different not because everyone is unique but because their trauma history is. Again, unreality and self deception. How frustrating. As John Lennon once screamed after doing therapy with you in LA, "JUST GIVE ME SOME REALITY!" Gary

You must show a psychiatrist a suffering face it with words that fit what medication can be helpful in his conception of what health care is concerned ... otherwise you are forced out to work in death's waiting room! How to choose your time to heal? Go to The Primal Center "for God's sake!"

There is not much that is intended to feel! We are informed all the time to think... think about everything... everything from sunset to full moon in threat of its consequences without love! In need of love through ideas about life that molds itself endlessly for what death we are suffering in an eternal longing for love!

Hi,back at work again after a break (half term), I put my tools down for half an hour today to listen carefully to a BBC Radio 4 program on "Adverse Childhood Experiences" (ACE).

What perhaps was more significant rather than the actual content, was the way the program had been written. It sounded like it had been written by a Primal Theorist trying not to mention Primal Theory. Epigenetics was not mentioned at all either. However, reference to A C E s long term effects on mental, emotional & physical development, function & health were spelled out in no uncertain terms. As the program proceeded it presented short statements / interviews/ questions & answers with experts (none mentioning epigenetics) who clearly developed a thread of what I could only describe as Epigenetic Primal Theory without that label (or the Primal Therapy). Right at the end, one expert said it all began with womb trauma in many cases. So, an ACTUAL admission / acknowledgement of the critical period, but without calling a spade a spade. The interviewer was audibly shocked, in just the way you might imagine, momentarily horrified inside, and trying to conceal it.

So, Art, I think: "The Cat's Out of the Bag". The 'authorities' are gradually working out how to break the news to us. It's consistent with your professional experience over the decades; the passive resistance (freezing out) in your 'industry' that Primal has received. It's because 'they' all know but can't properly get their 'heads' around it and admit it. What 'they' want is to maintain the status afforded by their authority and break the bad news to the plebs (some of whom are already better informed arn't we?) at the rate their own (emotionless) awareness can cope with the implications. . . Perhaps the implications onto them and their 'allies' most of all.

I don't really like divvying 'us & them' up like that but if there were ever a situation where you might feel like that, well, listen to the program. . .

If you can get BBC iplayer I'm sure this program will be available; I'll try to source it more accurately and post the info, it's a timely & fascinating radio document.

What is a feeling without perceiving it? An everlasting suffering for what I do not know better!

What more can life be intended than experience of the senses flourishing proces. Everything else seems totally pointless! I have to get answers on the road as I make my way in my process! Yes... I know it is more about what I have to experienced through feeling what I long since repressed... more than what I can expect others to do for me... what my system repressed why it is so difficult to come to terms with it... to remember something that is not even available for what my thougth can recall.

I once saw a sign that said "weakness is not my strong point" when I so perceived that the weakness was my forte so turned my understanding to what feeelings was all about I was talking to the right part of my brain... and I could cry!

What more can life be intended than come to my minds right state... for what ever it is... everything else seems totally pointless!And if I am misled for what I have to do... so... just imagine the results!

Review of "Beyond Belief"

This thought-provoking and important book shows how people are drawn toward dangerous beliefs.

“Belief can manifest itself in world-changing ways—and did, in some of history’s ugliest moments, from the rise of Adolf Hitler to the Jonestown mass suicide in 1979. Arthur Janov, a renowned psychologist who penned The Primal Scream, fearlessly tackles the subject of why and how strong believers willingly embrace even the most deranged leaders.

Beyond Belief begins with a lucid explanation of belief systems that, writes Janov, “are maps, something to help us navigate through life more effectively.” While belief systems are not presented as inherently bad, the author concentrates not just on why people adopt belief systems, but why “alienated individuals” in particular seek out “belief systems on the fringes.” The result is a book that is both illuminating and sobering. It explores, for example, how a strongly-held belief can lead radical Islamist jihadists to murder others in suicide acts. Janov writes, “I believe if people had more love in this life, they would not be so anxious to end it in favor of some imaginary existence.”

One of the most compelling aspects of Beyond Belief is the author’s liberal use of case studies, most of which are related in the first person by individuals whose lives were dramatically affected by their involvement in cults. These stories offer an exceptional perspective on the manner in which belief systems can take hold and shape one’s experiences. Joan’s tale, for instance, both engaging and disturbing, describes what it was like to join the Hare Krishnas. Even though she left the sect, observing that participants “are stunted in spiritual awareness,” Joan considers returning someday because “there’s a certain protection there.”

Janov’s great insight into cultish leaders is particularly interesting; he believes such people have had childhoods in which they were “rejected and unloved,” because “only unloved people want to become the wise man or woman (although it is usually male) imparting words of wisdom to others.” This is just one reason why Beyond Belief is such a thought-provoking, important book.”

Barry Silverstein, Freelance Writer

Quotes for "Life Before Birth"

“Life Before Birth is a thrilling journey of discovery, a real joy to read. Janov writes like no one else on the human mind—engaging, brilliant, passionate, and honest.

He is the best writer today on what makes us human—he shows us how the mind works, how it goes wrong, and how to put it right . . . He presents a brand-new approach to dealing with depression, emotional pain, anxiety, and addiction.”

Paul Thompson, PhD, Professor of Neurology, UCLA School of Medicine

Art Janov, one of the pioneers of fetal and early infant experiences and future mental health issues, offers a robust vision of how the earliest traumas of life can percolate through the brains, minds and lives of individuals. He focuses on both the shifting tides of brain emotional systems and the life-long consequences that can result, as well as the novel interventions, and clinical understanding, that need to be implemented in order to bring about the brain-mind changes that can restore affective equanimity. The transitions from feelings of persistent affective turmoil to psychological wholeness, requires both an understanding of the brain changes and a therapist that can work with the affective mind at primary-process levels. Life Before Birth, is a manifesto that provides a robust argument for increasing attention to the neuro-mental lives of fetuses and infants, and the widespread ramifications on mental health if we do not. Without an accurate developmental history of troubled minds, coordinated with a recognition of the primal emotional powers of the lowest ancestral regions of the human brain, therapists will be lost in their attempt to restore psychological balance.

Jaak Panksepp, Ph.D.

Bailey Endowed Chair of Animal Well Being Science

Washington State University

Dr. Janov’s essential insight—that our earliest experiences strongly influence later well being—is no longer in doubt. Thanks to advances in neuroscience, immunology, and epigenetics, we can now see some of the mechanisms of action at the heart of these developmental processes. His long-held belief that the brain, human development, and psychological well being need to studied in the context of evolution—from the brainstem up—now lies at the heart of the integration of neuroscience and psychotherapy.

Grounded in these two principles, Dr. Janov continues to explore the lifelong impact of prenatal, birth, and early experiences on our brains and minds. Simultaneously “old school” and revolutionary, he synthesizes traditional psychodynamic theories with cutting-edge science while consistently highlighting the limitations of a strict, “top-down” talking cure. Whether or not you agree with his philosophical assumptions, therapeutic practices, or theoretical conclusions, I promise you an interesting and thought-provoking journey.

Lou Cozolino, PsyD, Professor of Psychology, Pepperdine University

In Life Before Birth Dr. Arthur Janov illuminates the sources of much that happens during life after birth. Lucidly, the pioneer of primal therapy provides the scientific rationale for treatments that take us through our original, non-verbal memories—to essential depths of experience that the superficial cognitive-behavioral modalities currently in fashion cannot possibly touch, let alone transform.

Gabor Maté MD, author of In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction

An expansive analysis! This book attempts to explain the impact of critical developmental windows in the past, implores us to improve the lives of pregnant women in the present, and has implications for understanding our children, ourselves, and our collective future. I’m not sure whether primal therapy works or not, but it certainly deserves systematic testing in well-designed, assessor-blinded, randomized controlled clinical trials.

A baby's brain grows more while in the womb than at any time in a child's life. Life Before Birth: The Hidden Script That Rules Our Lives is a valuable guide to creating healthier babies and offers insight into healing our early primal wounds. Dr. Janov integrates the most recent scientific research about prenatal development with the psychobiological reality that these early experiences do cast a long shadow over our entire lifespan. With a wealth of experience and a history of successful psychotherapeutic treatment, Dr. Janov is well positioned to speak with clarity and precision on a topic that remains critically important.

Dr. Janov has crafted a compelling and prophetic opus that could rightly dictate

PhD thesis topics for decades to come. Devoid of any "New Age" pseudoscience,

this work never strays from scientific orthodoxy and yet is perfectly accessible and

downright fascinating to any lay person interested in the mysteries of the human psyche."

Dr. Bernard Park, MD, MPH

His new book “Life Before Birth: The Hidden Script that Rules Our Lives” shows that primal therapy, the lower-brain therapeutic method popularized in the 1970’s international bestseller “Primal Scream” and his early work with John Lennon, may help alleviate depression and anxiety disorders, normalize blood pressure and serotonin levels, and improve the functioning of the immune system.

One of the book’s most intriguing theories is that fetal imprinting, an evolutionary strategy to prepare children to cope with life, establishes a permanent set-point in a child's physiology. Baby's born to mothers highly anxious during pregnancy, whether from war, natural disasters, failed marriages, or other stressful life conditions, may thus be prone to mental illness and brain dysfunction later in life. Early traumatic events such as low oxygen at birth, painkillers and antidepressants administered to the mother during pregnancy, poor maternal nutrition, and a lack of parental affection in the first years of life may compound the effect.

In making the case for a brand-new, unified field theory of psychotherapy, Dr. Janov weaves together the evolutionary theories of Jean Baptiste Larmarck, the fetal development studies of Vivette Glover and K.J.S. Anand, and fascinating new research by the psychiatrist Elissa Epel suggesting that telomeres—a region of repetitive DNA critical in predicting life expectancy—may be significantly altered during pregnancy.

After explaining how hormonal and neurologic processes in the womb provide a blueprint for later mental illness and disease, Dr. Janov charts a revolutionary new course for psychotherapy. He provides a sharp critique of cognitive behavioral therapy, psychoanalysis, and other popular “talk therapy” models for treating addiction and mental illness, which he argues do not reach the limbic system and brainstem, where the effects of early trauma are registered in the nervous system.

“Life Before Birth: The Hidden Script that Rules Our Lives” is scheduled to be published by NTI Upstream in October 2011, and has tremendous implications for the future of modern psychology, pediatrics, pregnancy, and women’s health.

Editor

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Beyond Belief

Released in May 2016!

Dr. Arthur Janov examines the power of beliefs and how they are used as a mechanism for dealing with early trauma that goes as far back as birth. Beliefs are a way to rationalize with pain rooted deep in the unconscious, and reveal that love is a biological need. Dr. Janov applies engrossing case studies and his many years of experience to bring the reader one step closer to understanding human behavior, and how pain can become converted into an idea.

Lecture videos about Primal Therapy

Life Before Birth

Life Before Birth was 1st Runner-up of the 2012 Eric Hoffer Book Award in the Health category:

"This examines behavioral markers before adolescence and childhood, all the way back to gestation. Presenting case studies and trenchant research, Janov posits that much of the adult maladies affecting so many, such as anxiety, addiction, and ADHD, have roots in fetal biochemistry. His analysis offers hope for those concerned about passing on many perceive as hereditary conditions that might actually be prevented with a healthy lifestyle before and during pregnancy. Janov breaks down complex scientific and health-related ideas into accessible, relatable language. Life Before Birth provides a unique guidebook for parents-to-be and an interesting set of ideas for everyone."This is Dr. Janov’s opus magnum, a revolutionary work in every sense of the word. It may help to change the practice of psychotherapy as we know it, and above it, how we give birth today; the shoulds and should nots. It explains in detail how early trauma and adversity can have lifelong consequences and result in serious afflictions from cancer to diabetes. It can have monumental implications for medical practice, as well, and points to how we can rear healthy children.

Sex and the Subconscious

Here Dr Janov explores how trauma and lack of love stand in the way of millions of people as they try and experience sexual pleasure in life. "It is my impression that once we take a symptom - a sex problem - as THE problem and attempt to treat it as apart from the rest of us, we have a prescription for failure. Sex is embedded into our bodies and our physiology; it has to seen in context not as some alien event to be done to. Even the most recalcitrant sex problems can be well treated once we learn their historical origins. They are not really mysteries Having treated so many sex problems I now want to share what I have learned with you."

Books by Dr. Janov

The Janov Solution(Aug 2007) indicates that is almost impossible to eradicate deep depression without plunging into the depths of the unconscious where the basis of it all lies. Dr. Janov has found a way to investigate the deep brain system that provides the underpinnings of depression. He has a system to eradicate the pernicious imprinted memories that cause us to be helpless and hopeless in adult life.

Primal Healing(Oct 2006) is Dr. Janov's magnum opus, the culmination of decades of clinical observation and research. Here he melds current research in biology and neurology with his clinical work to produce a definitive thesis regarding how any psychotherapy that uses words as the predominant mode of therapy cannot make profound change.

The Biology of love (Mar 2000) Drawing on years of experience with thousands of patients and a growing body of evidence in neurophysiology, human biology and psychology, Dr. Janov shows how love or the lack of it affects not only our sense of psychological well-being but our physical health and our personalities as well.

Why You Get Sick - How You Get Well (Aug 1996) The culmination of over a decade of research and writing, Why You Get Sick - How You Get Well reveals the hidden forces of the unconscious that conspire against the human system, making us sick emotionally and physically.